Mediterranean seashells
 
Updated september 2024
≈ 1341 illustrated species, including 17“?” (doubtful data),
with 20 species of the genus
Theodoxus in the western Palearctic
 
Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida – Los pescadores Valencianos, 1895. Public domain.
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« The Mediterranean Sea is a hotspot of endemism and it is warming at two to three times the rate of the global ocean. The continental masses that surround it constrain species range shifts. Therefore, as seawater temperature increases, distributions of marine species may contract into few small cooler refugia, with consequent risk of extinction from range contraction and fragmentation, particularly for endemics. We assess this risk for 15 molluscs of conservation concern occurring in the Mediterranean Sea.
 
» As hypothesized, our models predicted major range shifts, contractions and fragmentation in the Mediterranean Sea for all species. Under moderate emission scenarios such as RCP4.5, up to 12 of the 15 target species will be eradicated from the eastern and southern warmer sectors. Under severe emission scenarios such as RCP8.5 and by the end of the century, we predict the global extinction of the endemic Patella ferruginea and Pinna nobilis. Non-endemic species may buffer range loss in the Mediterranean with range gains in the Atlantic Ocean. Still, we predict that only a single species, Zonaria pyrum, will have marginal total range gains in future climate warming scenarios.
 
» Main conclusions: eight species will become threatened and the fate of Patella ferruginea and Pinna nobilis contrasts the belief that marine species are less prone to extinction than continental species under a warming climate. » – Lotta Schultz, Johannes Wessely, Stefan Dullinger, Paolo G. Albano: “The climate crisis affects Mediterranean marine molluscs of conservation concern”, Diversity and Distributions december 2023, in open access.
 


POLYPLACOPHORA

MONOPLACOPHORA

GASTROPODA

CEPHALOPODA

BIVALVIA

SCAPHOPODA
 
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P E O P L E   W H O   C O N T R I B U T E D   B Y   T H E I R   P I C S   A N D   T H E I R   K N O W L E D G E
Jose Ahuir Galindo, Guy Bachelet, Martin Baessler, George Bazios, Dimitri Bekiaris, Antonino di Bella, Giuseppe Bonomolo, Aldo Brancato, Kornelia & Jürgen Brockmann, Hervé Brustel, Enzo Campani, Francisco Carmona Sánchez, Andrea Capici, Vanja Cetinić-Koća, Francesco Chiriaco, Marco Costanzi, Robert Crnković, Brian Cunningham Aparicio, Fabio Daga, Livio Augusto Del Blanco, Christiane Delongueville, Ferran Punti Diaz, Gilbert Eymard, Stefano Ferrario, Enrico del Fiero, Wolfgang Fischer, Franck Frydman, Melinda Gáspár, Victor Gashtarov, Charles Geerts, Ricardo Giannuzzi-Savelli, Serge Gofas, Jeroen Goud, Danilo Gubbioli, Jose Gutiérrez Sánchez, Eduard Heiman, Juan Higueras Gimenez, Roland Houart, Petra Hus, Đani Iglić, Erastos Kampouropoulos, Rudolf Kapeller, Lars David Kellner, Tea Knapič, Demetris Kolokotrónis, Jean-Paul Kreps, Michel Le Duff, Neven Lete, Gert Lindner, António Luis, Luca Magliaro, Didier Marcellesi, Stefano Marenco, Jose Manuel Martin, Henk Mienis, Ines & Nesko Miljan Popović, Constantine Misfud, Yücel Mollaoğlu, Bernadino Monteiro, Iván Mulero Mendez, Benito José Muñoz Sánchez, Damir Musin, Andrea Nappo, Domenico Natale, Jose Ignacio Nestares Pleguezuelo, Helmut Nisters, Panayotis Ovalis, Spiros Pavlidis, Daniel Pavon, Daniel Pellegrini, Alen Petani, Stéphane Pras, Rafaël Maria Puertas Rey, Jordi Regàs, Roberto Rodolico, Ana Luis Rodrigues, Bart Roelandt, Francesco Roncone, Carl & Craig Ruscoe (^.^), Luis Sánchez Tocino, Pierre Sidois, Draha Šindrbálová, Nabih Sobhy, Maria Teresa Spanu, Ennio Squizzato, Rino Stanić, Franck Swinnen, Daniele Trono, Pero Ugarković, Jean-François Videgrain, Fabio Vitale, Andrew Wakefield, Michal Weinberger…
 
Finally, nothing could have been conducted without the existence of the CLEMAM, the WoRMS, the Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Internet Archive. Well done, guys of all countries! The world wide web is the first wonder of this planet, and the next 100 live inside!
 
S P E C I A L   T H A N K S   T O :
ANDREA NAPPO, terrible collector, great connoisseur of the mediterranean malacofauna, author of valuable articles, and very serious photograph; BENITO JOSÉ MUÑOZ SÁNCHEZ, who doesn’t just collect cowries but studies them also, and is a great source of reliable informations; PAOLO G. ALBANO, paleontologist at the University of Vienna, taxonomist in marine mollusca at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, helpful, good fellow; RAYMOND HUET, malacologist (to whom I dedicated a genus and a species – to tell you that the guy is not without consistency), predator on testaceous mollusca of Mediterranean, valuable contributor to the knowledge of the Mascarene malacofauna ; ALAIN BERTRAND, omniscientist of the extant wildlife, malacologist, gardener, bird-watcher, photograph and great cook; RINO STANIĆ who, together with NEVEN LETE, ALEN PETANI, JAKOV PRKIĆ and PERO UGARKOVIĆ, is a powerful contributor to the advancement of the knowledge in adriatic malacofauna, and an impressively skilled photograph of the living species; and finally to SYLVAIN CLANZIG, unclassifiable lover of the life, poet, enthusiast, irreplaceable, and microphotograph. Guys, I am lucky to live at the same time as you.